Politically Direct: Josh Shapiro

NORRISTOWN — Josh Shapiro, the chairman of the Montgomery County Commissioners, recently reflected on the accomplishments that he, along with commissioners Leslie Richards and Bruce Castor have accomplished in 2012 and what their plans are for 2013.

“We accomplished a lot,” said Shapiro. “We inherited a mess, which made it rough, but it was a great year.”

According to Shapiro, the day that the trio was sworn in, the chief financial officer for the county told him that “we had a $10 million budget hole that needed to be plugged for 2012,” and that the county also faced a “structural deficit of $49.3 million.”

In an attempt to remedy some of the budgetary shortfalls that the county faced, the commissioners used a budget system called zero-based budgeting, which required every department in the county to explain what their department did and how much money it needed in order to be able to function.

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“We couldn’t tax our way out of this mess and we couldn’t cut our way out of this mess,” Shapiro explained. “In (using zero-based budgeting), it allowed us to focus on the core functions of county government and then after we had locked it down, figuring out what it cost to meet the needs for our constituents in conducting the core functions of county government. In doing so, we were able to balance our budget and address other problems in the process.”

Because of the new process, the county was able to balance its budget and began to focus on some of the other issues that the commissioners inherited from the previous administration, including concerns over One Montgomery Plaza, according to Shapiro.

“From the beginning, it was known to varying degrees that there were problems with the garage, with the façade of the building, and some of the internal aspects to the building,” he said. “Money was supposed to be set aside for that and it was not.”

Recently, the commissioners held a public meeting where an engineering firm that had reviewed the structure explained what problems the building had and provided an estimate of $30 million to remedy those problems.

“I would caution you that this was an engineering firm that gave that assessment,” said Shapiro. “Obviously, in terms of cost, we would need to go to bid and we would need to collect bids and we would obviously need to get a competitively priced package.”

In addition to addressing the county budget, Shapiro briefly touched on concerns over the state budget, particularly concerning state contributions to transportation, which could directly affect the Norristown area in the near future, as SEPTA is planning on halting services directly into Norristown while the Bridgeport Viaduct is repaired.

“SEPTA determined that if they aren’t able to get the resources in time to do the maintenance before the summer months, that the Bridgeport Viaduct is going to have to be temporarily shut down, and temporary is the key word, while they do the repairs,” said Shapiro. “In the summer months, the wood beams will spread and, in spreading, it’s going to cause that bridge to be not as safe as SEPTA would like.”

Finally, Shapiro also addressed concerns over what was perceived as cuts to mental health programs in Montgomery County for budgetary reasons. However, he said that the cuts were actually related to the zero-based budgeting process and eliminated some inconsistencies that had been discovered during that process.

“Our Behavioral Health Development Department, in its review of its core functions, realized, in fact, that they were providing support coordination services and at the same time, they were in charge of overseeing the services,” Shapiro said. “They were both the provider and the overseer and we discovered an inherent conflict in that process and so what we chose to do to eliminate that conflict was outsource the supports coordination to organizations in and around Montgomery County who were already providing those services.”

Since that decision was made, Shapiro said that more than 90 percent of the 2,400 people that needed support have already been registered with another organization with help from the county and many employees that were affected by the restructuring have been hired by these outside organizations, as well.

For 2013, Shapiro hopes that the commissioners are able to continue moving forward with many of the projects and initiatives that began in 2012, including “more reform in our county government that is going to lead to savings for the taxpayers and a significant investment in infrastructure,” to go along with more transparency in the government to make it more accessible for all constituents.

“It is great to make the county government more accessible to them and we’re going to continue to do that in 2013.”